Performance: Balinese Wayang Kulit Shadow Play

Sutasoma  

Sunday, September 28, 1:30 p.m. 

Performed by I Gusti Putu Sudarta, accompanied by live gamelan and kroncong music performed by members of Gamelan Raga Kusuma. 

 This is your once-in-a-lifetime chance to see a master of the Wayang Kulit shadow puppet genre perform live! Wayang (“shadow”) Kulit (“skin”) are flat leather puppets made from carved and painted rawhide. The shadow play tradition, as it is performed on the islands of Java and Bali in Indonesia, is at least 1000 years old. It is both a sacred genre and a mass entertainment for local communities and besides philosophical and religious instruction, performances include a healthy dose of bawdy humor and manic fight scenes.  

 Sudarta will perform Sutasoma. In it, the only child of a royal family, who is the also the reincarnation of the bodhisattva, eschews the trone against his father’s wishes and escapes to the forest for a life of contemplation. But first he must conquer various ogres in the forest, including an elephant-headed beast and a giant snake. 

The performance lasts approximately 75 minutes. Afterwards, you will have the chance to meet Sudarta and learn about his puppets. 

I Gusti Putu Sudarta is Faculty and Director of the Theatre Program at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts in Denpasar, Bali Indonesia. Sudarta was born into a family of artists in the village of Bedulu, Bali in 1968. From a young age, he studied traditional Balinese gamelan music with teachers in his village. He is a prolific musician, dancer, composer, and shadow master, actively performing at Balinese temple ceremonies, in academic contexts, at national cultural festivals, and on international stages. He has taught frequently as a visiting artist in American and Taiwanese universities.  

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